A few weeks ago we posted a short video about the Morecambe Rally back in the early 1950’s. This has prompted LAC Member Geoff Isherwood to put pen to paper and give us more information about the event and the Blackpool Rally which predates the Morecambe and ran in the 1930’s.
This helps explain one of the photos we posted which on further inspection may have been on Blackpool Promenade rather than Morecambe. Note the sponsor appears to be Autocar rather than The Motor.
Here is the information Geoff sent us.
“I want to let you have a little more information about the Morecambe National Rally.
I have a very informative book (640 pages long!) written by Donald Cowbourne entitled “British Rally Drivers Their Cars and Awards 1925-39″, Over 50 pages are devoted to The Blackpool Rally including the details of all the competitors. The Blackpool Rally was organised by the LAC and the format was the forerunner of the Morecambe Rally, The Monte Carlo Rally was the template on which it was based. I am attaching a photo of the first page of the chapter about The Blackpool Rally
It was held in 1936, 1937 and 1939. It was not held in 1938, as the RAC Rally finished at Blackpool that year. My dad competed in each of the 3 years and I am attaching a photo of the pennants,car badges and lapel badges that he acquired, along with a couple of photos of the only programme that I have. There can’t be many around, but Mr Cowbourne must have got copies as there are photos in his book! (There is a lapel badge from the 1938 RAC Rally that is in the photo of the pennants, but he was not a competitor that year.)
I am pretty sure that after the war a man called Bob Battersby was the Publicity and Public Relations man for Morecambe and he wanted the Rally for Morecambe
Maurice Toulmin was a stalwart of the LAC either side of WWII, He was Clerk of the Course for the Blackpool Rally. In the Morecambe Rally programmes up to 1958 he is mentioned as the Chairman of the Joint Executive Committee, so really The Morecambe Rally was just a continuation of the Blackpool Rally.”